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Facilitating Other-Awareness in Low-Functioning Children with Autism and Typically-Developing Preschoolers Using Dual-Control Technology

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Abstract

Children with autism are said to lack other-awareness, which restricts their opportunities for peer collaboration. We assessed other-awareness in non-verbal children with autism and typically-developing preschoolers collaborating on a shared computerised picture-sorting task. The studies compared a novel interface, designed to support other-awareness, with a standard interface, with adult and peer partners. The autism group showed no active other-awareness using the standard interface, but revealed clear active other-awareness using the supportive interface. Both groups displayed more other-awareness with the technology than without and also when collaborating with a peer than with an adult partner. We argue that children with autism possess latent abilities to coordinate social interaction that only become evident with appropriate support.

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Notes

  1. Because Study 2 included children who might find the sorting conceptually difficult, we used a version of the task where the sorting did not need to be correct: the two sets just needed to be in agreement.

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks are extended to the children and their teachers who took part in this study. The software development was in part supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK) Riddles project.

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  1. School of Psychology, Pevensey Building, University of Sussex, Falmer, BN1 9QH, UK

    Samantha Holt & Nicola Yuill

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  1. Samantha Holt
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  2. Nicola Yuill
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Correspondence to Samantha Holt.

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Holt, S., Yuill, N. Facilitating Other-Awareness in Low-Functioning Children with Autism and Typically-Developing Preschoolers Using Dual-Control Technology. J Autism Dev Disord 44, 236–248 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1868-x

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